Music of the Night
by Thurisaz
Summary: Keywords: music, excessive thinking, nighttime. Too tired from wrestling with Word to say more. R&R, please?


I am afraid of the dark.

Once I turn off the light and lie down to sleep, my demons come out to play in the playground of my heart and mind.

The darkness of the night, of the back of my eyelids, are the perfect backdrop for whatever scenes my imagination chooses to paint for me each night…the perfect landscape for the dark whispers of my heart. Scenes of mockery, of being lied to and lying back, of laughing at fallen friends and being laughed at, of rejection…whispers from my non-existent innocence, denials of my ability to love even as they avow it. And I lie there each night, drowning in the maelstrom of emotions roused by the stage sets and scripted murmurs in my heart that rise to swirl just under my skin.

But the one common theme underlying all these is soul deep and very real.

Loneliness.

The loneliness of a paranoid heart that needs to be held and loved.

The loneliness of a hopeful heart set in a hopeless course.

The loneliness of a well-hidden heart that aches to be found.

The loneliness of a cynical heart that simply wants to trust. 

Loneliness…that threatens to consume me whole, in the self-haunted minutes between wakefulness and sleep. Every night all my masks slip out to taunt me, with my weakness, my fears, my uselessness. The worst kind of pseudo-monsters inhabit my dark nights. I bite back screams from nightmares til I realise I never fell asleep.

I am afraid of the dark.

- - -

Trowa sat up in bed. He was obviously not going to get to sleep anytime soon. He could function without sleep for several days, but that did not mean he had to like it. He would much rather get all the sleep he could get while he could. Unfortunately, when nights like these struck, he was lucky to get any sleep at all. Most nights, his demons haunted him, but let him sleep. It was only when he was being particularly introspective that they refused him even the luxury of sleep.

And he was usually particularly introspective when…                                  

No, don't think about that. That way lies circular arguments and frustration, not to mention he did not feel the need for more punishment from the minxes in his head.

He got out of bed and went over to a cupboard in the corner of the room. He rarely resorted to this, especially when he was in the company of the other pilots, which he seldom was nowadays. He was Quatre's guest tonight, along with all the others, but he and Wufei were out. He had begged off, citing exhaustion as his excuse. Heero and Duo…he did not want to know what they were doing. So, in a manner of speaking, he was safe. No one would come in, and he was in his own room anyway. No one would expect him to be here…they would expect him to be in the room he shared with Quatre. Besides, he was pretty certain the walls were soundproof…for both good and bad reasons.

Trowa opened the cupboard and removed a flat flute case. Opening it, he assembled the slim instrument carefully, running caressing fingers over the cold metal before lifting it to his lips as he sat down on the bed. Blowing softly, he played a few experimental runs, before starting an easy but lovely classical piece, soon losing himself in the music.

One by one, his masks slipped from him, to lie docilely at his feet. One by one, his demons settled, listening contentedly. Trowa ran through song after song, from beautiful songs without words to romantic ballads from all kinds of time eras. 

Unfortunately, his mind would not keep still. Even as his fingers ran over well-remembered paths, his mind wandered over well-trod roads and inevitably stumbled upon what he had been hiding from.

The music took on a darker, almost haunting tone as hidden doors in his mind opened and pulled him down the rabbit hole, as it were. Trowa descended into the chaos within himself, trusting to the lifeline of his music to keep him grounded. 

As suddenly as it always happened, Trowa found himself on a flat surface that stretched in all directions as far as he could see. The music had woven itself into a tangible, but fragile, cord, one end of which was grasped tightly in his right hand. He tugged at it lightly, to find that it gave, although somewhat reluctantly, almost like an extendable cord. Once he stopped pulling, the cord went taut again, picking up the slack. Confident that it would not give way and leave him stranded, he turned his attention to the landscape. 

The floor was tiled with large, shiny squares of what looked like vid screens at the first glance. Flickering continuously, all out of sync with each other, he felt like he was looking at a wall of television screens that were not synchronized to show the same image. He was currently standing on a blank square, but unless he intended to stay here forever, he would have to move onto one of the surrounding screens. Sighing, he tied the cord of music in a loop around his wrist, before stepping gently onto the square directly in front of him, eyes shut tight as if to block out the images he knew would come. 

It didn't work. It never did. Even as the screen gave way under his feet and he felt the vertigo that came with being dropped, he was surrounded by faces he loved, places he knew, howling around him in a whirlwind of colour and sound. His memory trips were always as realistic as could be, down to what he saw, heard and – he stumbled a little as his feet impacted the hard ground – felt. There was never any chance of telling himself it was only a memory, it was just too real. 

He looked around. The arrangement of squares always changed, and so he never could be prepared for what he would see. Too many of his memories had the same bleak, desolate landscape as the one he was looking at for him to recognize which it was from the setting alone. He had traveled through and fought on too many battlefields to pinpoint which one this was. He would need some kind of supporting cast to do that.

The cord of music was still with him, snugly wrapped around his right hand. He grasped it tightly as he waited, listening to the distant sounds of his own flute, which he was still playing in his room. Then, just as he began to get restless and look around for a way out, though he knew there would not be one from his first few trips down memory lane, someone appeared in the distance. 

It was a little girl. He could recognize her even at that distance because he had seen this once before. This was his memory, after all! And sure enough, when he looked down he saw a young boy, himself at a younger age, standing not far away from him. And now he remembered, remembered standing at a battlefield after a long day's work, back when he had been with the mercenaries. He had been staring at the wreckage of giant mecha freshly painted red with the blood he had helped spill that day, thinking morose thoughts while desperately trying not to think them. Rather like he had been doing tonight, actually. The thoughts had been taking a rather morbid turn, along the lines of blood-red highlights for the silver and black metal pieces that had once been mobile suits, when he noticed a different sort of red highlights glinting in the sunset glow. 

In Midii Une's hair to be exact. The girl had come from the opposite side of the battlefield, swaying a little, like she had been injured, or maybe she simply had not eaten enough in the past few days – or at all. She had been his friend, his first and – until he met Quatre and the other pilots – his only friend. She had talked to him, been kind to him, and despite making it clear that she did not like fighting of any kind, she had not blamed him for what he must do. In hindsight, that was probably because she had had her own secrets, her own shameful mission, but it was still the first time anyone had ever accepted and liked him for what he was.

The girl and boy were talking together now, slightly in front of him. They would soon disappear, although it obviously did not happen that way in the past. No, as soon as the memory had Trowa in it's grip, the landscape would vanish and he would be left to relive the memory. He sighed and turned his thoughts back to that week so long ago, and the events that transpired after that meeting.

A week of companionship as he worked on various tasks around the camp, mainly those that did not draw attention to him. And Nanashi was very good at being unobtrusive. It had certainly not been a week of fun, games and laughter, but rather more of comfortable silences and warm company and occasionally, quiet conversations. Then the top layer of his little paradise peeled off to show the ugly stage set underneath. Just as Judas used an act of friendship – a kiss – to betray Jesus, a gift from his new friend eventually betrayed Nanashi. It was more than just the betrayal of his trust, it was also the betrayal of his friendship. Nanashi had never known what it was to be lonely before Midii, since he had never known companionship until she came and offered it. After she left, leaving him guilt-ridden and even more desolate than he had been before she came into his life, he finally realized how lonely he had always been. In a way, you could say that she showed him the meaning of being lonely. At the same time, she also taught him to fear companionship and be wary of everything. A young boy can be very impressionable, especially when his first taste of happiness turns sour so badly.

Trowa relived the memory, up to the point where he tore the transmitter off his throat and started looking for a place to camp alone after the battle where he betrayed his group inadvertently, then sighed and opened his eyes. As usual, he was back on the field of vid screens without being quite sure just how he got there. He looked at the seemingly boundless floor of flickering mosaic tiles, and felt so, so tired. Dropping to his knees, then turning to lie on his side, curled up in a small ball, he crossed his arms, tucking the cord of music to himself tightly and clutched at his arms helplessly, trying to stop the shuddering that took over his body. As he lay there, he felt the spinning that preluded the shift from the real world to his memory scape and back, and welcomed it even as he fell into the cold, black arms of unconsciousness.

He woke up a bit later in his own room, flute clutched tightly to him, curled up on the bed in the fetal position he had left the memory world in. Sighing, he sat up and started taking his flute apart and preparing it to be kept. He had finished putting it away and had been staring out the window for a long time, looking at the stars, the moon, the myriad shades of black that coloured the night, when the front door slammed, telling him that the other occupants of the house were home.

Tucking his loneliness away he went down to greet them. He had no need of it with them, after all. Safe in the world they created, a world of laughter, friends and love, loneliness had no way of walking with him. It had taken them some time to break through those barriers of mistrust and cynicism, but they had done it – Heero with his outward perfection and inward vulnerability, Duo with his jester's mask and introspective, thoughtful personality, Wufei with his all-or-nothing loyalty and Quatre – bright Quatre – with his pure love that seemed boundless. It would escape soon enough once he was alone, but his friends' and lover's companionship drove it further and further back, made it weaker and weaker each time he was with them. Maybe one day, it would no longer possess the strength to draw him down into his memories unwanted. Maybe…

A/N: I know you don't end a story with '…'. So call me guilty and sue me. Then again…maybe not…J

That was Trowa's and my contribution to the 'Linkin Park arc', though unless something changes drastically in my present situation there's not going to be any more of it. You don't have to know anything about the song I based this off of to read the story, and if you noticed the LP lyrics in it you are probably a very big fan of LP. But in any case, I'll include the portion I used under here. Same goes for the Backstreet Boys lyric, though that was more blatant. If I owned either, I would not be struggling my way through college. If I owned Gundam Wing or it's characters, I would not be trying to finish watching it before the end of the semester. Questions, comments or concerns? Email address is at the top of my page. As my TA said about the last lab session of the semester, 'don't cheer too loudly, my feelings are fragile.' In this case, it'd be 'don't flame too badly, my feelings are fragile.' I am open to criticism, but not flames. But do review, if you read, please? *Sirius eyes*

Papercut ~ Linkin Park (Section thereof)

It's like a face that I hold inside  
A face that awakes when I close my eyes  
A face watches every time I lie  
A face that laughs every time I fall  
(And watches everything)   
So I know that when it's time to sink or swim  
That the face inside is hearing me / right beneath my skin  
It's like I'm / paranoid lookin' over my back  
It's like a / whirlwind inside of my head  
It's like I / can't stop what I'm hearing within  
It's like the face inside is right beneath my skin

www.linkin-park-lyrics.com


End file.
